OurColony.net has become very popular, especially after the controversy surrounding it. We decided to jump aboard and enjoy the ride by creating our own colony. Join the Gear Live colony and put your brains to the test by helping to solve some of the toughest puzzles you have ever seen.

Point your web browser to the main page, OurColony.net, and enter “Play” (without the quotes) in the space provided. Click on the ant and you will now be directed to a “lounge”. Here you can either join a colony or create one. Click on the “Join Existing Colony” link on top. You are now at a page asking you for a password. The password to join our team is 21903555, enter it on the password field and click the ant logo. You are now directed to a registration page where you fill out all the usual stuff you can expect to see when registering for a new membership.

That’s it. You’re all set and ready to start tackling the puzzles and getting to see the mouth-watering pictures everyone keeps talking about. Remember to tell your friends, the more people that are involved the more interesting it gets. Once you join, head on over to the Gear Live forums to discuss the puzzles, or just to talk about the latest technology and trends.

Advertisement

There has been a lot of buzz and controversy surrounding a new community based web site, OurColony.net. Many people believe this site to be the work of 4orty2wo Entertainment employed by Microsoft in a big Ad campaign to promote their Xbox 360 gaming console. Of course, Microsoft denies such allegations. Just what is OurColony.net all about? OurColony.net is an Alternate Reality Game where members are given riddles and puzzles in the form of challenges and encouraged to work as a team, or colony, to solve it. The team is then rewarded with points and some images of what seems to be Xbox 360 hardware and software. The question still remains, is this really an ad campaign, thus making the images earned on the website the real deal? Let’s take a look at the facts and theories.

Here’s a little something to do with that old floppy drive that you no longer have a need for. Ohmslaw.com has some nicely laid out instructions on turning a floppy drive into a robot. The instructions for the Floppy Robot are for a 3.5"drive - but never fear. There are also instructions for the 5.25” Floppy II.

Latest Gear Live Videos

Don’t know how old this is, but I just saw it, and thought it was awesome. If you type in a tracking number into Google’s search bar, your search results will simply be a link to your tracking status. It’s little things like this that make us love Google the way we do. That would be, in a good way. There are a few other things you can do just by typing numbers into Google, such as UPC codes, VIN numbers, and more.

The computers in Minority Report were cool. So cool, that the US government has plans to use a similar setup to manage the vast amounts of data that needs to be handled in that line of work. They have a company called Raytheon working on the technology, and they have even hired the man who came up with the idea for the movie, John Underkoffler. He believes that a mouse and keyboard limits what you can do with data. The system would react to a pair of gloves which are monitored by sensors, which then control what appears on the screen.

Despite the disappointing sales of the Olympus m:robe (I guess the millions spent during the Super Bowl didn’t help), Olympus continues to support the product. The m:robe MR-100 and MR-500 units get protective cases, remote controls, cradles, and a few other add-ons. If you have one of these units, check out the accessories. It never hurts to have a case that both fits your DAP, and also allows you to control it comfortably.

If you are looking to boost the performance of your Mac mini so you can start doing things that the Mac is known for - power user software - then you should know that the hard drive is slowing you down. Even if you max out your RAM, the 5400 RPM laptop drive can just be sluggish at times. Now, you can just go with an external firewire drive, but that can be expensive. Arthur Whalem of the Arizona Macintosh Users Group has put up a nice guide to modding the Mac mini so that you use a standard hard drive, which rests outside of the unit, to pick up speed. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but it works.

When we put up the story on Bust Up Gum last month, we certainly didn’t expect our inbox to be filled with questions from women wanting to know more about the product. Most of them wanted the information to give to their “friend”. Well girls, you can tell your friends that Bust Up Gum is available for order in the United States. A supplier will have 1000 units on hand to ship out shortly, so act fast. They don’t know when they will get the next shipment after this first allocation sells out. It costs $50 for a bottle of 100 pieces of gum.

While it sounds surprising, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Research firm Strategy Analytics has found that in 2004 there were 257 million camera phone sold, versus 68 million digital still cameras. Camera phones sold four times as well as digital still cameras. Obviously, cell phones are the number one accessory right now. With more onboard memory becoming available, along with higher resolution cameras, digital camera makers are going to have to start rethinking their stance in all this.

It’s not rare to see some pretty interesting cases when going to LAN parties, from ultra-large to small form factor - but a PC in a can? The 3XS ACON Isotope PC from Abit is just that, a PC in what seems to be a can. It’s a good conversation piece indeed, but can it pack a punch? Under the hood, or lid, is a very good gaming set up compromising of an Intel 3.2GHZ P4, Abit’s own version of the Intel 915 chipset, ATI X700 Pro 128MB for the graphics, 1GB Corsair memory, DVD-RW drive, and a 250GB hard drive. This nice little system will set you back £799 and is available for pre-order now via Scan.